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The Indie Farm Sim That Got Pulled Into A Culture War

Farm Folks CEO On Boob Physics: ‘We Don't Want To Attract Nasty People’

A bizarre post from an in-development indie game has sparked controversy and questions

<i>Farm Folks</i> CEO On Boob Physics: ‘We Don't Want To Attract Nasty People’

Image: Kotaku / Crytivo / NinaMalyna / Stokkete (Shutterstock) (Shutterstock)

Alyssa Mercante

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On April 29, an in-development farm sim from Crytivo called Farm Folks shared a now-deleted post about breast jiggle physics on its official X/Twitter account that kickstarted a firestorm, emboldened gaming’s baddest actors, and wreaked havoc in the game’s official Discord. The team behind the studio has since apologized, but the aftermath lingers, leaving confusion and doubt about the company’s true intentions in its wake.

I spoke to the CEO of Crytivo, Alex Koshelkov, about the post, jiggle physics, bad actors, and more, to try and paint a clearer picture.

The Farm Folks breast physics controversy

The post in question, shared to Farm Folks’ more than 28,000 followers on X/Twitter and beyond, featured a paneled video of three versions of one of Farm Folks’ femme-presenting characters walking, with three different percentages displayed on each panel. The text accompanying the post read: “Alright, folks, it’s time for some serious game development talk! We’re tinkering with character physics in Farm Folks. Burning question: which version has the perfect breast jiggle physics?”

The percentages (30, 50, and 90) indicated the level of jiggle physics applied to the character. The official Farm Folks account replied to its own post, asking fans if they wanted to see “what 150% looks like.”

The Farm Folks social media post that was deleted.

Screenshot: Crytivo / Kotaku

The responses were less than positive, clearly charged by the culture war currently raging in games that’s seen a fifty-something former Blizzard employee rallying people against community managers, Pokemon GO changes, a narrative design company, and the perceived censoring of Shift Up’s new action RPG Stellar Blade. Members of the Farm Folks Discord took to the chat to demand clarity about the social post, wondering if it was fueled by misogynistic attitudes in games or was just very, very tone deaf. Bad actors flooded the comments on X/Twitter, and some bled into the Discord, as well.

One apology posted by Koshelkov in the Farm Folks' Discord.

Screenshot: Discord / Kotaku

“I’m not pretending; I’m explaining the reasoning behind this,” Koshelkov wrote in one apology. “Our goal is not to over-sexualize our characters; it’s the opposite. The goal is to achieve realistic physics and reactions to the world. We have ragdolls, we have inverse kinematics, hair moves with wind, and so on. It just felt natural to have tasteful breast movement on the character.”

Koshlekov promised that the original post would be deleted and an apology would be shared in its wake. That apology said that the team “crossed a line” and was “inappropriate” in its portrayal of in-game jiggle physics. It was jumped on by Mark Kern, the aforementioned former Blizzard employee.

Kern posted a statement on X/Twitter saying that “you should never apologize to cancel pigs” because “they were never your customers. They don’t buy games/comics. They will ask for more and will even blast you for your apology. They want to hurt you, and an apology only emboldens them to do more. You lose sales. Your real customers hate you for caving. You leave money on the table. You have an obscure indie game and it’s hard to stand out. You literally missed your chance to get 10x the support and visibility by doing this. It’s not too late @FarmFolksGame. If you delete the apology and put the jiggle physics back in, and tell them to pound sand, you can still rocket your game to marketing success.”

His post was one of many lamenting Farm Folks’ decision to apologize for the post.

Farm Folks CEO on backlash, boob physics, and bad actors

I didn’t expect Koshlekov to respond to my request for comment, let alone talk to me via Discord video call for over an hour about Farm Folks, his dislike of “cozy game” labels, the game’s purposefully cheeky content (which you can see in some of its older social media posts), and American politics. (Koshlekov is originally from Turkmenistan.)

“The wording was silly,” he said when I asked about the original post, the response to which he said was “overwhelming” and “unfortunate” because “the internet is almost a one-sided court” where “no matter what we say, it doesn’t matter.”

“The original idea was—yeah we spiced it up with a joke, which was the problem—but the general idea was to make sure that we’re doing [breast physics] right…because our game is very immersive. It’s not that we’re fixated on women’s parts…our entire character body is full of technology…to me, breast movement was not controversial since it’s human biology.”

Farm Folks’ social media presence has historically been somewhat cheeky.Image: Crytivo / Farm Folks on X

Koshlekov insisted that “he wasn’t even following” the Stellar Blade discourse. “I learned more about it recently, so that’s why we really wouldn’t gaslight [and pretend we didn’t know].” He then talked at length about how Farm Folks wasn’t just a cozy game, that it has elements of immersive sims, PvP and PvE modes, and was overall “a bit more mature” than other games in the genre.

“We’re apologizing for the wording…and there’s people saying ‘you guys shouldn’t apologize, not cool, you should stand up to the crowd.’ No, we fucked up. We’re happy to apologize.”

But the bouncy boobs will stay in some capacity: “Regarding elegant, tasteful [breast physics] implementation, I still think that we’re going to do it.”

More than once in our conversation, Koshlekov referred to “both sides,” suggesting that there were bad actors involved on either end of the spectrum. I asked if he wanted Farm Folks to court the kind of players that joined the Discord in bad faith, or those who believe that boobies should be bouncing at 150% physics. This was his response, edited for brevity and clarity:

We don’t want vulgarity. Because like, it can be fun. It can be a little bit goofy, it can be meme-y, but we’re not gonna go after, like over-sexualization goofiness in the ways like Conan Exiles, where you can like modify penises and things like that. We’ve listened to our community, we heard that sometimes we talk about, like, implementing, like, that jiggle physics, right? Which, again, like, we obviously have tons of settings for any kind of physics, like the body parts, just like we can, we can do it with soft spots like the butt, we can do it with chest, shoulders. Anything’s like we’re just assigning it—it just makes it immersive.

But to answer your question—No, we don’t want to attract nasty people, we don’t want those. We will have some limits—like as much as we want to give it, but it’s so controversial—I want the player to choose how they want their character to look. Like, if you want, for example, the breast to have a little more movement or not. But like again, it’s not going to be like you scroll [the physics slider] up and then this is just like all over the place, and it’s like, goofy...We are definitely not tailoring our game for little kids…We want to spice it up for people to have action, to have fun.”

Here, he digressed into talking about GTA and the team’s plans for PvP elements before asking my opinion on the issue. I told him that I had been the subject of a harassment campaign since early March. I said that I felt not pigeonholing his game in the cozy genre was smart, before bringing it back to the discourse, and the harassment that has often followed suit.

“The issue is political…some groups of people don’t agree with this, and some groups of people have no limits,” he said. “I think we’re in the crossfire, and the question goes to if [the post] was intentional or not—like, no, not really…We’re not using any kind of gross tactics where it’s enraging our community. That’s stupid, right? I’ve been hearing a little bit about the, I don’t really know the game name, the Blade game, I’ve seen the screenshots [of protagonist Eve’s outfits and body] and they’re crazy to me…it’s not even almost fitting to the game.”

I asked how he felt about some people, Kern included, saying that Farm Folks will miss out on support from because of its apology.

“Fuck that. I don’t care what he thinks,” Koshlekov replied. “I’m apologizing for structuring it badly…if we were to rewind the times, we would skip that.” He confirmed that some of his Discord responses were formulated really quickly, and there were some language barrier issues because of the swiftness in which they were written. “But I don’t want to use that as justifications, if we fucked up with that, we fucked up that.”

If you’re having problems with our characters, like, look for help. Maybe go and date a woman or something like that. Because this is not our goal, we don’t want to attract people that are attracted to only these body parts. — Alex Koshlekov, Crytivo

“We don’t want to be a part of [the culture war]. We don’t want [Kern] to give us any recommendations, we prefer to evaluate it from what we consider human character…we want to be sincere with our fans and do good…we don’t want to get into that kind of dirt,” he said. “I see this as the biggest problem in the United States [Farm Folks’ 20-person team is based in Dallas, Texas, nine of which are women], all the people are very divided. There’s two camps and everybody’s throwing stones at each other. I’m more on the side of like, we need to—it sounds a little bit silly—but I think it’s about uniting and finding a language between each other.”

“The goal is for players to properly represent themselves in the game. We’re not aiming for over-exaggerations,” Koshlekov insisted. “The goal is to make it very elegant and very sensitive to women and their bodies…You have to be a very poor person to kind of sexualize this…like the internet is full of sex right now. There’s some crazy things that you can find, if you’re having problems with our characters, like, look for help. Maybe go and date a woman or something like that. Because this is not our goal, we don’t want to attract people that are attracted to only these body parts.”

Though Koshlekov toed the “both sides” line, he did make it clear that the goal of Farm Folks is to “be diverse.”

“I’m not afraid of that word. I know those guys can pick it up and start shaking it like crazy like monkeys in a zoo, but we are after diverse gameplay. Everybody’s welcome. Doesn’t matter what your gender or your preference is, everybody’s welcome.”

I felt more than a little bit of whiplash while talking to Koshlekov—in one breath he’d say something like “everyone is welcome” and in another he’d bemoan the existence of radicals on both sides. He told me he was talking to me with an open heart, but made a comment about the press twisting words. In our over hour-long conversation, he spoke about saving bugs in his house, how young I looked (thanks Botox), and Turkmenistan politics. But ultimately, it felt like he was open to having a discussion and against bad actors using Farm Folks as a battleground for their culture war, even if he was hesitant to make sweeping, politically charged statements.

Only time will tell.

Not long after we concluded our interview, I was told that one person who was speaking out against the boob physics post was kicked from the Farm Folks Discord, ostensibly after asking about past Kickstarter campaigns. “We’re not banning anyone if they have questions or constructive criticism,” Koshlekov said in a Discord DM.

I find it interesting that Farm Folks, connected to Gawker, were involved in the original Gamergate, years ago. This is ALL effing bullshit and a bunch of performative crap to run young people crazy, and fuck with their heads over sex, sexuality and the CLEARLY upsetting problem of being attracted to WOMEN! While these coordinated knobs argue back and forth, women are stuck in the middle, being treated like the usual inanimate object. This is the same group connected to British Misandrists, the Hollywood Gay Mafia and Leftist from the Queer community, INCLUDING hateful fucking women haters. And Farm Folks is playing along. Don't fucking play with me! It's the exact same with some of the crap films and series coming out, meant to upset and cause outrage. FUCK YOU KOTAKU.

#A bizarre post from an in-development indie game has sparked controversy and questions #FUCK YOU KOTAKU #YOU ALL ARE LYING #LOOKS LIKE GAMERS HAVD BACKSTABBERS ALREADY EMBEDDED IN THE INDIE GAME INDUSTRY #Misandrists #Leftist Queer Woman Haters #Hollywood Gay Mafia #Samr With Stellar Blade #The Model's Attributes Were Discussed And Critiqued At Length

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